


We'll Work Through This Together

by writingtherevolution (greenmartini)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts, House unity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23321272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenmartini/pseuds/writingtherevolution
Summary: After the Battle of Hogwarts, the physical castle is fixed, but there's still a rift between the four Houses. A group of professors tries to fix the rift in the castle.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	We'll Work Through This Together

The Great Hall was abuzz with the overlapping voices of every first year on the school grounds. Nobody knew what this meeting was about, but their afternoon classes were cancelled out of the blue. Juniper Toloni, Muggle Studies professor, stood at the front of the room watching them.  
  
A short sharp whistle caught the attention of the students. “Line up with your House against the wall, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor on my left, Hufflepuff and Slytherin on my right,” she said, enunciating to be heard around the room. She watched as the children crossed the rooms to their respective walls, a clear divide being left between the Ravenclaws and Gryffindor as well as between the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins on the opposite side.  
  
“Thank you,’  
  
With a wave of her wand, the long tables that held the lunch plates an hour previous had disappeared, being replaced by an army of smaller, four person tables.  
  
“Since last Wednesday, the other six years here have had this exact meeting that we’re about to have. They were asked not to tell you anything so you could come into this with a fresh mind. With me here today are Professor Filius Flitwick of Charms, Professor Neville Longbottom of Herbology, and Professor Harry Potter of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Many of you don’t know me yet, but I am Professor Juniper Toloni of Muggle Studies,” she introduced herself.  
  
“We’re all here today to have an impromptu History of Magic lesson,” Harry said to her left, “I promise you it won’t be as bad as Binn’s classes,” he chuckled at the groan that erupted from the room.  
“You’ve been at Hogwarts for a month now,” Neville started, “and the professors have all noticed a concerning trend regarding the Houses.”  
  
“Back before the war, I used to see a lot more people making friends with students from other Houses,” Flitwick added, “but just before the war and now there’s an even stronger divide.”  
  
“We’re not saying that you can’t be friends with your House,” Juniper said, weaving her way through the tables, turning to talk to the room while she walked. “it’s been bothering us though that there is still some seeming predjuice within the Houses. In the spirit of that, we’re going to have you sit and then we’re going to have a story and then you and your table will do some activites together. First up, do I have any First Years that are friends with anybody from another House? Have any of you met outside of class for any reason? Put your hands up.”  
  
A few of the hands went up, albeit tentatively. “Good good,if you and your friend have your hands up, go ahead and find yourself a table,” the ten kids that had their hands up went to their friend and scattered themselves at tables. The three students in Slytherin that had their hands up, slowly lowered them back down when they realized the person they considered a friend did not raise their hand.  
  
“The rest of you get a real treat now of making new friends. No overlap between the Houses, one House per table, go ahead and fill in the gaps. Find your other three,” Juniper said. “Now,” she said when nobody moved. With a quick scurry, the students wound their way through the mess of others, trying to get a table with someone they were at least familiar with.  
  
It took about four minutes of weaving to the tables, and some slight arguments, but eventually all of the first years had a new table.  
  
“Now I know History of Magic isn’t everyone’s favorite class, but this is going to be one lesson that you want to pay attention to,” Juniper started. “I know some of your older siblings know this story and have passed it along, but it’s going to go back a little further than that.  
  
“In the early 90’s, Voldemort was working his way back into power. It caused a lot of headaches here at Hogwarts, including the Chamber of Secrets being opened, one death in an international Wizarding competition we held here at the school, and, this is the part most of you have probably heard, a war between good and evil that took place on these very grounds. Ten years ago, this castle was all but destroyed. Whole towers had to be rebuilt. The stairways were broken apart. Fires raged the castle. It took years until it was good enough to call home again.  
  
“Physical destruction is one thing though, we can rebuild that. But this war brought something upon this castle that we haven’t fixed yet. I noticed, and I’m sure you noticed, and I definitely know they noticed that when I asked the different Houses to find a friend from a different House, none of you paired up with anybody from Slytherin. The separation between the Houses is causing a rift in the castle that we need to fix. I felt it my whole time here at Hogwarts, and I know the Slytherin House is feeling it now, and it makes your time here more stressful than it needs to be.  
  
“Now I know a lot of you don’t want to be friends with the Slytherins because you think they’re evil, or manipulating, or everyone who is a Slytherin is evil. I also acknowledge that some of you didn’t come up with some of these opinions on your own. I know, I’ve talked to a lot of students in recent years, and I know what insults were thrown at us during my time at Hogwarts.”  
  
Juniper looked around the room, making sure to make eye contact with the few that were still watching her. Some of the students were looking guiltily at the others sitting at their table, or their friends from their own House at other tables.  
  
“I’m not trying to shame you here, I just want you to think about why you think the things you do. If I don’t change your mind, that’s fine. Your opinion is yours for a reason.” Juniper noted a student sitting on the opposite side of the room from where she was standing, her hand stretched far in the air.  
  
“Go ahead, Melissa,” Harry said after getting a nod from Juniper.  
  
The young girl stood, “I… I have a question then. How--- why, I guess, did the hatred of Slytherin start if none of it was true?” She sat back down after the question.  
  
“Very good question, Melissa, would any of you three like to field this one?” She said looking toward the front of the room.  
  
Flitwick gave her a peculiar look. “I think, as the head Slytherin in this room, it should be yours.” Harry and Neville nodded as well.  
  
“The last six years we did, the three of us took turns telling our stories of the last couple years,” Harry explained to the confused faces in the crowd.  
  
“I think, especially for this group that is so new to Hogwarts, that it might be a good time to hear from someone who was in Slytherin at that time,” Neville added.  
  
Juniper smiled up at the three of them. “Thank you,” Juniper looked around at the room, realizing every eye was now on her.  
  
“Now, as Professor Potter said, I was in Slytherin during my time here at Hogwarts. When I got sorted I was SO excited. Crying happy tears the whole way to sit at the long table after the Sorting Hat yelled it out. One of the snakes.  
  
“Now, anyone who knows the history of Hogwarts knows that Salazar Slytherin himself wasn’t the easiest guy to get along with. His opinions and ideas often conflicted with the other founders.  
“I soon learned, Slytherin already had a bad reputation. Our old head of House, Severus Snape, was notorious for hating the other Houses, while giving his own House points for the smallest things. Even us in the Slytherin House realized there wasn’t much we could do to piss Snape off enough to take points away from us. We really pushed the limits there.  
  
“The other teachers and students weren’t as forgiving against our antics. Headmistress McGonagall was head of Gryffindor and she was good at putting us back in our place.  
  
“I can’t lie to you, some of the hatred to our House was our fault, some of us were dicks to other students, in particular so called “half-bloods” or muggleborn students. I can say I’m sorry that happened, but that doesn’t do much to fix it, does it? What I need you to consider though is where some of us got those ideas. Remember, we spent eleven years with our parents before any of us set foot in this castle. Some of the Slytherin House grew up with Death Eaters, with Voldemort’s followers, so we were bound to hear the “pure-blood” propaganda. Growing up, our parents taught us about blood purity, our friends growing up were the children of other Death Eaters, we never really got to learn anything else. Then when we got here, some of us still held that “holier than thou” attitude. We didn’t get much love from the other Houses.  
  
“There was nothing in place to tell us that our beliefs were wrong. I spent my first fourteen years believing what I believed. It wasn’t until the Tri-Wizard tournament, sitting in the stands, when Harry Potter brought back Cedric’s body, killed by Voldemort’s followers, that I thought something might be wrong with my beliefs. It took one innocent life to change me. I didn’t personally know Cedric, but I knew of him. Sweet soul. wouldn’t hurt a fly, always friendly and kind with everyone, studied hard. Killed. Murdered. One single spell took him out, ended what had been a promising life. It made me think. I went back to the dungeons, and I stared at the fireplace for what must have been hours that night. Contemplating. I started thinking about what I’ve been told. What they taught me. What I thought I knew. What I needed to learn. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that some of my good friends I made here were not purebloods.  
  
I spent the next couple of days spending time in the library, reading, researching, ignoring the meetings the rest of the castle were having. I went through so much ink, and I found out at the end that at this point in life, there was no such thing as a pureblood, even the infamous pure blood families were rittled with muggle blood. Sometimes generations and generations before they made their claims. It blew my mind. We were all being told a lie, blood had nothing to do with it, and it doesn’t to this day. It wasn’t our blood that made us better, it was the fact that we were told we were better than everyone else.  
  
“I didn’t know what to do with the information, and at that point I felt like I had no one to talk to about it. I went to the only House I could think to help, I knew it wasn’t going to be my own, so I went to the Hufflepuff dorms. Stood outside knocking until a few people my year took pity on me and let me in the common room with them. We talked for hours, and I mean late into the night. Philosophical discussions, knowledge about blood status, what history had to say, where I go from here. I made some new friends that night, and I still have them to this day.  
  
“The next few years got rougher and rougher. The ministry got involved, a lot of Slytherins sided with them in making the whole school a living hell. The real trouble started in the late ‘90s. The Death Eaters took over Hogwarts, were the teachers, dark curses were being taught as simply as you learned the levitating charm. The night Voldemort finally invaded, it was chaos. Older students and families showed up to help fight against the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Some of the students here fought with their parents, some against their parents. No decision made that night was an easy one.” Juniper paused, taking a moment to reflect.  
  
“What did you do that night?” A quiet voice said from behind her. She turned to look into the big brown eyes of a Slytherin boy staring at her intensely.  
  
“What did I do that night? That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? I’m going to be honest with you here...I did nothing. As cowardly as that sounds, I did nothing. I felt like I had nothing to fight for anymore, it wasn’t worth my life. I wasn’t fighting with the Death Eaters because I learned years before their cause wasn’t anything I wanted to support. I didn’t want to fight with the other side either because as far as they were concerned, being a Slytherin meant I was evil and wasn’t worth their time anyway. This castle gave me nothing at the end,” she broke eye contact with the student to keep moving around the room.  
  
“Members of my own House betrayed me. It took a long time of debating with myself to come to terms with the fact that I didn’t fight that night. I didn’t pick a side. I picked me, and I picked my safety.  
  
After the battle, I did come out of the dungeons to help. I didn’t want to fight the physical war, but I was there for people during the emotional war that followed, and looking back, that was definitely the more important of the two for me.  
  
I helped families reunite with their dead and injured in the Great Hall, this same Hall that we are now joined in. I held mothers grieving for their lost children. I held fellow students who lost dear friends. I sat with those students, dead and alive, who had no family or friends left or willing to visit them. It was a long night.  
  
I can tell you for a fact, a lot changed that night. I know everyone up at the front of that room had lost someone in one way or another that night. They were all in this room with me. For the first time, in a long long time, it felt like we were starting to come together again.  
  
I had some of my fellow Slytherins, not many mind you, not many of them stuck around even before the battle started, but I had some of them come with me after the battle. We sat in a circle outside the Great Hall, not wanting to be near the grieving families for a bit. We talked. It was one of those conversations you can only have in the dead of the night. Some of them had been in the dungeons with me, some of them had been fighting. We all looked tired regardless.  
  
They asked questions out loud, a lot of the same questions I had asked of myself and my peers in my fourth year. A lot of the group left that night with a changed perspective. I had the honor of meeting up with some more people from my House recently at a Ministry gathering, and I’m pleased to know that that same group kept up with the new ideology.  
  
I want you to remember this, as you meet with your new friends at your table. Blood status doesn’t make a witch or wizard; it’s the decisions that you make and the way that you treat your fellow witches and wizards that truly matters.”  
  
The best way we can learn here is as a team. I am all for friendly competition within the Houses, Slytherin is going to win the Quidditch cup this year after all,” she laughed as a couple Slytherins cheered out and a couple of Gryffindors boo’ed, “but the key there is friendly competition. Don’t hate each other because of the color you wear, use it as an advantage. Let the Ravenclaws teach you to question everything about everything. Let the Hufflepuffs show you the definition of a “hard day’s work.” Let the Gryffindors teach you to go out on a limb and trust in yourself. Let the Slytherins teach you to set a goal and stick to it. We have our advantages, that’s how the Sorting Hat knows where to put you, but don’t for one second believe that the other House’s traits are a disadvantage in any way.”  
Juniper startled at the unexpected cheering coming from the back of the Great Hall. She started laughing when she saw the House ghosts in the back of the hall cheering, getting the First Years closest to them to cheer along as well.  
  
“House unity at it’s finest!” The Fat Friar cried out before flying around the Hall.


End file.
